Browsing: Dremiel Byers

Wrestling’s rarely looked at as a team sport, especially at the elite level — one on one, no substitutions, no help beyond shouts from the sidelines. But Olympic qualifying for Team USA wrestling may be the ultimate team sport — still one on one, still no substitutions, but if a wrestler earns a qualifying bid in his weight class, it doesn’t go directly to that individual: Slap “USA” into the Olympic bracket for now, and whoever wins the U.S. qualifier in Iowa City next month gets the golden ticket. Need somebody to fight for their country, not just themselves? Find…

Wednesday night, NBC’s “Rock Center” will air a feature piece on Rulon Gardner, the 2000 Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling gold medalist whose post-gold medal escapades have come straight out of the “News of the Weird” archives: A 2002 bout with frostbite that cost him a toe, a 2004 motorcycle wreck, a mixed-martial-arts bout in Japan against a 1992 Olympic judo gold medalist (Gardner won), a 2007 plane crash, and an appearance on the NBC weight-loss reality show “The Biggest Loser.” In its online teaser, NBC reports that as of February, Gardner needed to lose 45 pounds to make weight at the…